My Single Mom Life

I just woke up after falling asleep in my chair for about five hours.
I fell asleep like that because of sheer exhaustion, insomnia for about the last six days, maybe a total of three hours of sleep over the last six days, plus a lot of stress, and a really horrible day yesterday after leaving my doctor's office.

I left my doc's office, I was in and out in 15 minutes, and went straight to the same pharmacy that I have been going to for the last two years.
As I was waiting to be waited on, I watched as five other people were told that their insurance no longer covered their medications because the price went up.
I listened as the pharmacist told these people that they couldn't pay cash for their scripts either because then they could go call their insurance and try to get reimbursed by saying the pharmacist was making them pay cash.
A lot of angry people left the pharmacy.
I handed in my scripts, waited, and then was told the same thing.
My insurance no longer covered it because the price went up, he was losing money.
I've heard this same kind of story before, been there, done that,

I called my insurance company to find out what to do, to verify it, that they no longer covered it.
My insurance company said they did cover it and they were going to call the pharmacist and find out what the problem is.
So my insurance called him to tell him it was covered, he lied to them and said he didn't have them in stock anyway.
My insurance company said they were looking up other pharmacies to see if they had my pain meds in stock, please hold.
I'm standing in the pharmacy waiting to hear, I needed to be in the AC because it was about 98 degrees with a high heat index and massive humidity, I felt like total crap, I had been sick for the last 4 days, no sleep, I needed to stand there and wait to find out what to do.

As I'm waiting on hold, the pharmacist said that if I really wanted my medications, even though they ARE covered by insurance, if I really wanted them, he was refusing to take my insurance, he told me that if I really wanted my pain medications that I needed to pay $879.90 for my medication, but he would not take my insurance which has a co-pay for me of just $2.50.
He was so totally trying to rip me off!!
This is exactly what that other pharmacy did, but they only extorted me for $20!!
I told him that was not the price of the medicine, that my insurance just told me how much they were for the cash price, and it came to $358.00, not $879.00.
He said the price went up, I either pay it or I don't get my medication.
I said no, that wasn't the price, I was not going to pay that, he was trying to extort me.
While he and I were talking, my insurance company called back, his assistant got him to the phone, the rep I was on hold with came back on the line and I told her what he told me, she relayed that info to the supervisor who was now talking to him, the supervisor told him that he legally cannot charge people whatever price he wants if he accepts insurances which he does.
He started yelling at the supervisor, screaming, said he was not going to fill it, he was losing money, he did not have to fill it if he chose not to, and that yes, he can charge whatever the hell prices he wants.
He then hung up on the supervisor and came around to the front where I was still waiting, glaring at me.
The death stare.
He started yelling at me like he just yelled at the supervisor.
Because I called the insurance company and he got caught in a lie saying my meds weren't covered by my insurance, my insurance company is now investigating him for fraud, so he told me to get the hell out of his pharmacy, I was "dismissed", he told me to get out and that I can never, ever, go back to his pharmacy ever again.

So then I had to go to 3 other pharmacies which didn't have them in stock, then I finally found one that had them, but the wait to get it filled was going to be about 45 minutes to an hour, so I had to sit there and wait for almost an hour after just spending almost two and a half hours dealing with a total jerk and extortionist of a pharmacist, and going to other pharmacies, in and out of the car a whole bunch of times in the heat, I just wasted time all afternoon and my doc appointment was only 15 minutes long, but I spent nearly three hours trying to get them filled!
I was tired, sweating to death, angry, upset, I just wanted to get my meds and go home.
I finally got them filled and came home where the teens had been waiting for hours and hours for me, they kept calling to make sure that I was ok because I'm usually only gone for a max of two hours on doctor day, and now I had been gone for almost three hours and they were worried about me.

Then later that night, Mark asked me to pop this huge zit he had on his forehead, he couldn't get it to pop, he wanted me to use my nails on it.
So I popped his massive, and I do mean MASSIVE zit on his forehead, holy crap that sucker was enormous!
After that, I dug through my medicine cabinet and make-up bin finding all of the 10 - acne products+ that I've bought for the teens over the last six months or so trying to help them clear up their skin, and I washed his face with a cleanser, then I applied a mask for five minutes, washed that off, then I applied a toner and told him to keep his hands off of his face for the rest of the night, if I saw him picking at his skin I was going to dig out some old mittens and tie them to his hands to keep him from picking at the rest of his pimples.
He laughed, but I was so not joking, I said, "Don't push me dude, I had a really bad day, I will so totally tie mittens on your hands to keep you from popping and picking at the rest of your pimples."
He looked at me wide-eyed, knew I was seriously in a bad mood, and swore to not pick at his face for the rest of the night, pinky-swear promised me.

I just can't believe that there are so many unscrupulous pharmacists out there trying to extort people, trying to force people to pay outrageous prices for their medications when they accept insurance but just don't want to wait for the reimbursement or whatever.
This is now the second time that I have had a pharmacist try to extort me, and the second time that my insurance company has had to investigate a pharmacy for fraud.
If my insurance goes back through the records and sees anything that looks suspicious, like price fixing and upping the prices or whatever, he is in so much trouble.
The rep that I was speaking to said that the supervisor was so not happy with him at all, that the supervisor called his actions "shady", said that he was a liar, he had said that he didn't have them in stock, then he said that he did if I wanted to pay $879.00 for them, the supervisor said that he was totally trying to be fraudulent, and so the supervisor was personally going to investigate him.
I hope they do, he was totally shady, totally trying to extort me, and now I wonder just how many other customers he's done it to and because they needed their medications, they just paid it.